Chloe
by The Die Hard
Summary: So, where did Chloe actually end up disappearing to? Heh-heh-heh. Why limit ourselves to one option?
1. Who Wants Chloe?

Chloe

AlMiles have been trying to kill off Chloe since Season One. Failing that, since she has so many fans, they're now trying to push her aside by rewriting their boring pancake-makeup fantasy-cheerleader into the smartest and most perfect girl ever (and replacing Chloe with their latest curly-blond-cheerleader type -- ugh, I hope the actress paying Claire on Heroes SUES them for giving curly-haired-blond cheerleaders a bad name), and downgrade Chloe to orbiting Blana and Clairol-a like everyone else. Which is enough to make anyone except the pimple-faced pre-teens puke. So I'm going to take Chloe away from them, before they can pull another idiot stunt. (Jail? Migawd. Allison, demand superpowers and kick the crap out of everyone for your exit line.)

They may own the rights to Chloe, but I own Special Operations, and Baron John gets first pick.

"I want Chloe Sullivan," head field agent Lake told her (nominal) boss.

The centuries-old Baron gave due consideration to Lake's statement. He harbored no illusions about her ability to take whatever she wanted. Lake was a small, pale, inoffensive-looking woman, highly trained in spy-craft, experienced at blending in, accustomed to manipulating lightly.

She was also the deadliest weapon in his arsenal of last-ditch desperation against the potential world destroyers. Born with violently lethal psycho-telekinetic power, spending a childhood without parents -- for the most part on the streets -- had taught her to have absolutely no reluctance to use it. She did not make demands lightly.

"You, and half the rest of the planet," he said finally. "Oracle wants her as backup, and not just because of her computer skills. Wayne has already set up a cover position for her at the Gotham Gazette. Stargate Command wants her, of course, but that's probably her mother's personal idea -- Hammond swore on his latest grand-daughter that he wouldn't tell Carter, much less O'Neill, that her talent had manifested. If he had, I'd have had to bring both of them inside S.O. anyway. Hopefully Carter just believes that knowing about Krypton would give her a head start on offworld missions.

"The BBC and Al Jazeera both want her as a foreign correspondent, no surprise there, especially after we recommended her for Rhodes. LexCorp, unfortunately, did find out that she'd graduated to operational psi, and of course wants to study her, although at least they have no idea of her full potential. I sent Myriam after THOSE records." Miriam was also psycho-telekinetic, nowhere near Lake's level of power, but with a talent for making machines obey. "And after she tracked down Kyle, of course about a hundred politicians want her on their staff, without even knowing about Kyle. Thankfully, none of them know about her power, or she wouldn't be safe even with us guarding her.

"About the only people who haven't come begging us for her is Project Quantum Leap, and that's only because Tina would probably beat Calavicci to a pulp if he brought in another good-looking computer hacker."

"The point is," Lake said reasonably, "that her mutation HAS activated. She's a healer, and she HAS used her full power now. We're the only ones who understand that kind of capability, and who can train her. If anyone else gets control of her... And she could go flat insane from not knowing how to handle the input. Or she could die from trying to do too much. Cyrus nearly did, and he's far stronger than she is. He's been using his power for decades."

"Apples and oranges. Cyrus is also empathic. As for power, Bill's never brought anyone back from beyond dead."

"And it nearly killed her. She's empathic in a different way, like that Gem on original Star Trek. She has to absorb the injuries using her own life force. She can heal herself instinctively, but she doesn't know how to control it. Imagine if she ever tried to heal Kal-El."

"Cyrus has."

"AFTER he was trained."

Baron John regarded his pale killer for another minute. She did not shift or fidget under his gaze. The two of them were in accord about almost everything in the first place, anyway. Priorities were his forte. Operations were hers.

"Is Nicole free?" he said finally. "She's met the two of you before, she might be easier to persuade if you don't just sneak up on her."

"John." Lake sounded hurt. It was a testament to her acting ability. He couldn't actually have fazed her if he'd accused her of stealing the torch from the Statue of Liberty. "I was planning to enlist Kal-El's help anyway."

"Oh, lordy," John muttered. "NOW you've gone and complicated matters."

"How is that? She already knows about Clark's capabilities."

"Thanks to Wynter frying government computer records, and Kurt frying the spysats that catch him carrying tractors around, however, Idiotland Stupidity still doesn't. But they do have Chloe under surveillance. Reappearing after you've been killed twice tends to show up on even 'national ID' political idiocy. Any approach to her that involves Kal-El will put him on the radar too, unless you can convince him to be very careful."

Lake had not been speechless since she was ten. The idea of convincing Clark to be careful set a new record.


	2. Enter the Dragons, uh, Specials

(I dunno what's up with this website's software, but it deletes the weirdest things at the weirdest times...)

--

Smallville hadn't changed much. It clung to its "old town" image with a determination that had to be meteor-induced -- not even Two-Egg had managed to keep the condominiums away.

Metropolis, on the other hand, probably wouldn't change unless it burned to the ground, and maybe not even then -- like many other old, established cities, it had grown deep tap roots and a personality of its own, glaring at the rest of the universe and daring it to try something. The universe did, every few years. So far, the count was "cities all, universe zip." Come hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, bombings, firestorms, or invaders, some places were a living entity unto themselves, built of the determination of its founders and immigrants, and the people who belonged to it were fiercely bonded to whichever one they called home.

Why anyone would commute between Smallville and Metropolis, though, was beyond the comprehension of even the superhuman special agents.

("Sheesh, it's like commuting between Germany and Poland. Except without the food."

"Nikki, you don't EAT food."

"I do in Germany and Poland.")

They'd picked a long weekend in order to catch Chloe and Clark in a reasonably close proximity, and also hopefully without Lana or Lex interrupting. Let those two skulk around each other -- the less the agents had to deal with the two hopelessly paranoid schizophrenics, the less likely it was that Lake would just kill both of them with a thought.

("Is it the kryptonite mutation making them crazy, or were they both born flaming psychotics?"

"Long story." That from Wynter, their resident four-digit-IQ teenager. "But I wouldn't advise any of our healers to even try.")

It was not news that Lionel had been reprogrammed by the Kryptonian command crystal -- Lake had made him especially susceptible to mind control when she had torn up sections of his memory years before -- but they really hadn't expect Lex to go flat overboard so soon. Great Ghu knows that Lex was as stable as a pogo stick, but something more than his simmering hatred of all things had to have ignited this latest bout of sheer wild-eyed disconnect from reality.

"The 'traveler,' huh?" Nicole looked up from the notes she was skimming and made a show of shaking her head. (Being a machine, Nicole occasionally overdid the mannerisms she had learned by watching her fellow Specials. Not that any of them were exactly normal representatives of society themselves.) "What other unrecyclable feces did Swann, and those hopefully-permanently-dead demon-worshiping Teagues, feed the Queens and poor old Lionel? Granted Lionel was new to this game, but he was a suspicious bastard, and the Queens were old hands. How'd they get taken in?"

Lake absently upped the cruise control to 90. "Well, the Teagues studied under Le Fay. Maybe she had enough psi to plant a suggestion in their minds. Too bad Mustafa didn't have a chance to get hold of them." Pretty much everyone suspected their communications expert was a control-override telepath, though he denied it with all the indignity his one-meter body could muster.

Nicole manufactured a snort. "I wouldn't wish that on Mustafa. Listening on a cesspool like whatever-her-name-really-is would ruin even my appetite." (Since Nicole's only appetite was for hard radiation, that was going some.)

"What I don't understand," Lake said thoughtfully -- and for Lake to not understand something, it had to be right out of the realm of possibility -- "Is why Swann would go along. He and Albert and Neils and Marie and probably all the rest of the class of '22, and probably Clarke and Asimov too, from all we can tell -- all got the same message from Jor-El when he finally figured out the planet was lost, game over, once and for all, and this was his last shot. Of course none of them, not even Curie, were in Wynter's class, but you'd think that they could have figured out that SOMEthing was coming from space, and they should be on the lookout. So Swann owns the best receivers, and he sends out an SOS for decoding help. And the only response they get is from the TEAGUES? And the QUEENS?"

"And the Baron, and J'onn, and they're all turned down, and Wynter didn't get a crack at it until he was what, four?"

"That was later." Lake clicked the cruise control up to 100. "So the Teagues were using brainwashing of some sort to keep it to themselves. That doesn't explain the Queens."

"Maybe they were mutants too."

"Mm. Considering Oliver's talents and predilections, that could well be. Send a squirt line, ask what Oliver's parents were exposed to. They may have done something stupid with their money."

"What about Lionel? And Lex?"

Lake clicked the speed up to 120 mph, and glanced over at Nicole. "Alexander and Kal-El would have clashed no matter what Jor-El did. Chloe Sullivan is the wild card, the power no one knows where she can be best used -- or most dangerously directed. We can only hope it's us."


	3. Chloe Takes the Leap

(Drat, I had to change my favorite paragraph when they killed off Lionel. Phooey.)

The last time they had spied on Kal-El, the two world-savers had spent a good ten seconds looking at each other in blank disbelief at the sight of the bizarre old billionaire drinking tea in the Kent kitchen. Pete Ross's middle brother, who had a slight mutation of his own -- eidetic memory -- was recruited to keep track of that particular peculiarity, in exchange for his express wish for an inside track to the CIA, where Baron John figured he could do some whistle-blowing, get fired, get "disappeared," and come to work for Special Operations for real training. So far, he was on track, and stood a good chance of being the only one still employed when the next administration took over.

They dropped a courtesy card (with untraceable fifty-buck bills) off at the Ross house, but despite his excellent reports (according to the Rosses, Lionel had apparently finally lost it entirely, to let his guard down so completely), the rest of the family wasn't ready to be brought into Special Operations yet.

Clark was dickering with the bankers over what he could get for the farm without selling it for condominium development. The herd was going to free-range ranchers, the corn to food stock ("And not corn syrup, no matter what the subsidies are!" Clark demanded in that tone of voice that would later earn him his "Man of Steel" nickname). Chloe was standing by with a cool eye, injecting occasional advice, and despite being out on probation (Lake had, well, "taken care" of that, but Chloe didn't know it yet), still looking ready to take on the world. The two agents all but winked at each other. Target acquired.

"If it ain't Mister Kent!" Nicole said loudly, slapping him on the back. Since Nicole could throw a space shuttle orbiter like a paper airplane, Clark staggered without having to fake it. Lake turned to the banker and made a calm inquiry as to the holdup, and would a phone call from New York or Washington expedite matters? Because right now they had better things to do than listen to excuses.

Chloe stared. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Come on, kids, it's way past lunchtime, and we got places to do and things to be, and the sun don't feed itself. Well, actually it does, but I rate myself one aphorism a day at least." Nicole put one of her arms around each and steered them out. Since Nicole was a little over two meters tall, eye-level with Clark, the bankers weren't going to argue. Especially when Lake turned back and fixed them with a stare that had broken Afghani soldiers.

Clark, prudently, gave Nicole a ride in the truck. Chloe offered Lake a ride in her car, which Lake declined, in order to drive their own microvan to the Kent farm. Leaving it in the bank parking lot might have prompted some teenager to investigate the slight modifications.

Clark, well-trained by Martha, offered them fresh juice as soon as they parked. The agents accepted, bemusedly. Lake, at least, had a human stomach.

Chloe went into the confrontational mode she had inherited from her mother as soon as they were out of observation range. "Okay, I remember you. The government agents who offered us scholarships. Wish I could have accepted, but things happened."

"Yes," Lake said softly. "Our sympathies about Gabe. And your foster-mother."

Chloe blinked that away. "So long as you're not here to criticize..."

"No. We're here to offer you a different future."

"Huh?" said Clark.

"Why don't you go out and practice hand-to-hand with Nicole, Kal-El? Even at full speed, your timing and observation still suck. Nobody Baron John had trained would EVER be caught out that way. Nikki? Kick his ass. He needs a reminder."

"Roger that, boss." Nicole grinned (the first expression she had ever learned to mimic, and that from Lake, which was not exactly in the "win friends and influence people" book), seized Clark by the wrist, and dragged him outside, while he yelped and protested.

"Not near the house! Or barn! Or cows!" Lake reminded them belatedly.

Chloe sat down on the floor. "Okay, I officially now know that you are more than offering a scholarship. You -- you know? About Clark?"

Lake tilted her head and tried to look friendly. "We know about Clark, and Kara, and that second-rate Brainiac, for whom we also have plans. But the most important point is, we know about you." Lake lifted her legs and sat in a semi-lotus position -- a meter off the ground, supported only by thin air and her ability to psycho-telekinetically convert gravity into potential energy. "We are, as the saying goes, offering you a shot at the game."

Chloe felt the whole world go gray, and weird, and a little sick. Then it cleared, and she felt more clear than she ever had in her life. "You're a mutant."

"Actually, most of the talents we know about -- and I'm by no means the most unusual -- could be fairly normal to the human species, just suppressed. We're still working on finding everything encoded in DNA. There's a lot more in our genes than you'll see in the careful 'I am not a tin-hat conspiracy-theory' journals.

"If you join us, you will be asked to submit blood samples and maybe even bone marrow, to help answer exactly that question. Kal-El, Clark, did -- from which we determined that he could cross-breed with Terrans, which suggests that he's more a product of an extremely altered environment, not alien biological ancestry. I did also, which determined that I'm so far out of the genetic norm that I'm clinically sterile."

Chloe glanced towards the window, where the sounds of gleeful combat and shouts of "WHOOPS!" were raging at high speed. "And ... Nicole?"

"Well, she can't give blood, since she's a machine, but some day we may be able to dissect and duplicate her. Not any time soon, since absolutely nothing can cut her dermal covering, but tomography gets better every day. And she's perfectly okay with that."

"You're kidding."

"Chloe, child, she spent last month taking apart nuclear weapons while we were being shot at, in places where I had to go under drug-forced hypnosis to learn even rudiments of the languages. We aren't going to ask you to go on the front lines -- but we will ask you to accept that Clark is not the strangest of us. And you're barely a mutant, by our standards."

Chloe closed her eyes and tried to imagine it. Mutants who LIKED being mutants. People who -- ROBOTS who -- thought that your first priority was to do whatever you could, in defense of the whole planet.

"I'm in," she whispered.


	4. Clark Gets Smacked Around

Lake drifted sideways in mid-air -- that was the only way to describe it, Chloe thought distractedly; you couldn't exactly call it "flying" -- over to the window, and watched in obvious amusement for a half minute or so. Chloe couldn't decide whether she was amused, righteously justified in her long pursuit of the stories of weirdness, or just hallucinating. Finally, she decided that, at this point, there was no harm in simply joining her.

Nicole was in the process of spinning Clark around as if he were a discus and she were the thrower. More like a hammer-throw, Chloe thought, and then snickered to herself.

"I hope Nicole's aim is better than that guy at the Olympic trials last year," Lake commented. "I'd hate to see one of those trees -- "

At that moment, Nicole let go with a wild whoop, and Clark echoed with a surprised yell. For a few glorious seconds he was airborne, leveling out, gaining control -- flying.

He turned on his side and spread out his arms, curving away from a tree and into the clear. Then he plowed into the ground.

Chloe laughed and hastily covered her mouth, hoping Clark was too distracted to have heard her. Lake sighed. "I do not understand why he has such a psychological block against using his natural abilities. Every time some circumstance or other forced something new to manifest itself, you'd think he'd be delighted. Instead, he acts like it was another burden to carry. Hells, Nicole has been pestering Wynter to find a way to give her heat-projecting capability for years. Just what we need, a fire-starter in the field... HEY, YOU TWO, IT'S SAFE TO COME IN NOW!"

"I think," Chloe said as quietly as she could, "that he believes that his powers make him a freak. Every time he finds out about another difference, it makes him feel ... less human."

Nicole and Clark appeared in the doorway, and Clark shifted a worried look from Lake (still reclining in mid-air) to Chloe. Chloe gave him a weak smile in apology for whatever he might have overheard.

"For pity's sake, go get cleaned up," Lake told them. "Martha Kent would give both of you a lecture about where you were raised. Or manufactured."

Nicole grinned and went outside in search of a hose. Clark made haste for the shower.

"So, does it make _**you**_ feel that way?" Lake went on in a normal tone. "That your being able to do something wonderful, to help other people, even at terrible cost to yourself, makes you somehow less human?"

Chloe looked startled. "I ... uh ... I guess I never thought of it that way. It's ... just ... most meteor freaks end up turning dangerous. Going crazy."

"Which might explain Lex's paranoia, though I'm more inclined to blame a lifetime of emotional abuse by Lionel. But if you'll think back on all the kryptonite mutants you've known, didn't most of them already have psychological problems? Did any of them do anything that they would not have done anyway, if they had been handed a mechanical weapon capable of the same things? I don't think Timothy McVeigh or Ted Kaczynski were ever exposed to any meteorites. I know for a fact that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not.

"Just look at all the suffering caused, second-hand, by a regime that risks nothing of themselves at all. It isn't kryptonite mutation that magnifies instability. It's unmerited, un-prepared-for, unconstrained power."

Clark and Nicole had come back in before the last of that little lecture, and stood silently listening, meeting each others' eyes. Both of them knew, as Chloe did not, that despite the almost unimaginable capabilities they both wielded, Lake was far more dangerous.

Lake glanced at Clark, and her eyes glinted with malicious amusement. "Who is the one person you know that has been exposed to kryptonite, at close range, the longest?"

Clark's eyes went wide. Chloe thought about it. "At close range? You mean, like, living in the middle of a strike area?"

"I mean, like wearing it around her neck."

Chloe's eyes went wide then, and Clark closed his. "But Lana's not a krypto-mutant!"

"Oh, she most certainly is. Her power is very subtle, but in no way harmless. Tell me, have you ever met ANYONE who DIDN'T worship and adore Lana? Much less not even like her?"

"Uh..."

"That's because there's nothing to dislike about Lana," Clark put in defensively. "She's a nice person!"

Nicole would have choked laughing, if it were possible for her to choke. "She's a manipulative, conniving, spoiled, self-centered little brat," she stated matter-of-factly. "She can't affect me because -- " a quick glance at Lake, who nodded permission -- "Well, because I'm a machine, and she can't affect Lake because -- " again the glance, again the nod, and a slight smile -- "Um, because Lake is a little -- well, a lot -- well, a whole hell of a lot -- more powerful. Of course, being trained helps. Once you get a grip on your own power, you'll be able to deflect most attempts at mind control, since yours is partly psi-based too."

"Actually, there might be a good use for Lana's power, even without training," Lake mused. "She'd go far in politics. Maybe even Secretary of State."

"She could hardly be worse than the last half-dozen," Nicole grumbled in agreement.

"Unfortunately, Lana is one of those we can't trust to bring into our 'inner circle' for serious training. There are certain -- psychological indicators that we rely on. Lex and Lana don't meet them."

"But I do? I don't understand."

"You do, and you will. And so did one other meteor-strike victim you know. Remember Cyrus?"

"Bill? The boy who claimed he was an alien?"

"That was because he picked up on our alien friend there" -- a nod to Clark -- "When his ship came down close by. Two little boys, about the same age, both terrified, one an empath-healer -- and he'll be one of your trainers -- the other with all the mental power his advanced civilization could cram into him. Of course they connected. Of course Bill was left with an indelible impression of _**being**_ Kal-El. But once Clark forced him to face the truth -- and you saved his sanity, there, Clark, don't ever sell yourself short on your emotional strength, on your ability to be there when someone needs you -- he decided to become who he _**really**_ is, which is so much more than what he thought he was."

"I'm glad for him," Clark said softly.

Chloe looked from Clark to Nicole. It was easy enough to tell that Lake was the real force behind the scenes here, and she wasn't quite ready to face that yet.

"But, didn't Bill -- Cyrus -- go catatonic from using his power?"

"He did retreat from being forced to face too much, too soon," Lake clarified. "It's horrifyingly dangerous to grow up with an ability you don't know how to control. The Kents were the best thing that could have happened to Clark, with their disparate backgrounds and united goals. And I was one of the lucky ones -- I was found early, by someone who understood how to teach me."

Again the glance between Nicole and Clark. If it hadn't been for the centuries-old Baron John daring to face down, and take in, the small orphaned child -- well, Lake had killed hundreds of people before she could talk.

"You're not going to crash and burn, Chloe, because you've already faced about the worst anyone could be asked to face, and you took it without breaking," Nicole said matter-of-factly. "You might see worse someday -- look at the kids coming back from war with their minds fried by the horrible things they've been forced to do -- but right now, the only real danger you pose is to you yourself."

"To me? But I -- I'm..." Chloe gulped, not quite willing to say out loud what she'd been telling herself ever since she'd first decided she was a "freak."

"You're an empath-healer, and it's not that uncommon a talent, though the power levels you and Bill are capable of are certainly on the upward end of the scale. But what happened to Bill could happen to you too, if you try to do too much too fast. When you heal someone, the energy comes out of your own electrical and chemical reserves. Your life force, if you will."

Chloe narrowed her eyes, but Clark nodded. "You gave your entire life for Lois, Chloe. You were dead. Somehow, you brought yourself back -- but you, you were dead."

Chloe blinked and thought about that. She didn't remember being dead. She remembered waking up in the morgue, and immediately assuming she was in another of the horror-novel scenarios that seemed to be Smallville's answer to Eureka, but it would hardly have been the first time.

"Then I'm not a freak? I'm not crazy?" she finally said in a small voice.

Clark smiled a little. "Can you tell her? What you told me?"

This time, it was Lake and Nicole who exchanged the so-much-deeper-than-words glances, the satisfaction of partners who have accomplished what they set out to do. "Sure."

Clark turned Chloe to face him, hands resting lightly (always so carefully, so lightly) on her shoulders. "When I first met these two, they told me what they called themselves, and what they called me. And now, what they call you."

"The official name of our organization," Lake said blandly --

"For tax-dodging and condemned-building write-off purposes, of course," Nicole put in, earning her a flat look from her partner.

"-- Is 'Special Operations.' Not all of our members are mutants, but everyone is chosen for a particular talent, for both the ability, and the commitment, to do what needs to be done when there is no other way out."

"It's not as much fun as a scholarship," Nicole admitted, leaning back (carefully, always so carefully) against the wall. "But I guarantee that you'll never be bored."

"Altered genetics or not, everyone with the potential to work at our level is given the chance. If, after the proper training, you decide you want to do something else, then we hold nothing over you. We're not some alphabet agency that swears you to secrecy. We know up front, without question, that anyone we choose to let inside is someone we can trust to make the right choices yourself."

Chloe looked up at Clark, then at Nicole, and finally met Lake's eyes. She realized, like a soft explosion inside, what she was being offered. "You chose Clark."

"And you."

"So to you, I'm not a, a," Chloe swallowed, suddenly aware that calling herself a "freak" in front of an alien, an android, and a small pale woman floating in mid-air might be considered something of a faux pas. "Not just a meteor mutant."

"Nope." Nicole pushed away from the wall, grinning, and smacked Clark on the forehead. "Come on, speedy, you can help Chloe get packed and make excuses for her unexpected visit to an ailing relative. For pity's sake stick to the script. You are the worst prevaricator on the planet. We gotta get you some lessons if you're ever going to quit making lame excuses for disappearing all the time. You think you fooled Perry White for a heartbeat? Hah. It took all day to bribe him."

Considering that the Specials wouldn't waste a day bribing six governments, that was going some.

"No, Chloe." Lake put her feet on the ground, and held out her hand. "You're not a freak. You're a Special."


End file.
